Psycholinguistics and experimental methods

This course is part of the programme
Master in SL studies - Linguistics

Objectives and competences

Overview of the field of psycholinguistics, its aims, scope, methods, main questions, main developments, and possible directions for individual research.

Competences:
• Ability to recognize interesting research topics in the field of psycholinguistics
• Students obtain skills for searching, reading and critical analysis of the scientific litereature in psycholinguistics
• Conducting research with the basic techniques like self-paced reading, eye-tracking, elicited production etc.

Prerequisites

The introductory linguistic courses. This course is related to other courses in the Language curriculum.

Content

Psycholinguistics studies the psychological (and neurological) aspects of human language. The students will study the main psychological and neurological models of language constructed on the basis of the study of language evolution, language acquisition, and language processing. The students will also learn about the major experimental techniques used in psycholinguistics.

Intended learning outcomes

• Knowledge of the foundations of psycholinguistics and the innate aspects of natural language
• Knowledge of the foundations of comprehension and production of language
• Knowledge of the foundations of language acquisition by children

Readings

• Bock, K., & Levelt, W. (1994). “Language Production: Grammatical Encoding”. In: M. A. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of Psycholinguistics. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc.
• Carroll, David W. 2007. Psychology of language. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
• Chomsky, Noam (1959). “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior” in Language, 35, No. 1, 26-58.
• Fernandez, Eva M., and Cairns, Helen Smith. 2010. Fundamentals of psycholinguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.[F&C]
• Golden, Marija. 1996. O jeziku in jezikoslovju. Ljubljana: U. v Ljubljani, Filozofska fakulteta.
• Pinker, Steven. 2010. Jezikovni nagon: kako um ustvarja jezik. Ljubljana: Modrijan. (angleški izvirnik: Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct: How the human mind creates language. New York: Morrow. [in več kasnejših izdaj])
• Field, J. (2004). Psycholinguistics: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge.
• Gibson, E., & Pearlmutter, N. (2000). “Distinguishing Serial and Parallel Parsing”. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. Vol. 29(2), pp. 231-240. Kluwer Academic, US.
• Rosch, E. (2002). “Principles of Categorization”. In Levitin, D. J. (Ed), Foundations of Cognitive Psychology: Core Readings, pp. 251-270. Cambridge,

Assessment

• Attending lectures, active participation in in-class discussions • 1 or 2 homework assignments • final exam

Lecturer's references

Associate professor of Linguistics at the University of Nova Gorica

STEPANOV, Arthur. Voiding island effects via head movement. Linguistic inquiry, ISSN 0024-3892, 2012, vol. 43, no. 4, str. 680-693. [COBISS.SI-ID 2605307]
STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. When QR disobeys superiority. Linguistic inquiry, ISSN 0024-3892, 2009, vol. 40, no. 1, str. 176-185. [COBISS.SI-ID 1130491]
STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. Successive cyclicity as residual wh-scope marking. Lingua, ISSN 0024-3841. [Print ed.], dec. 2006, vol. 116, no. 12, str. 2107-2153.
STEPANOV, Arthur. The end of CED? : minimalism and extraction domains. Syntax, ISSN 1368-0005, apr. 2007, vol. 10, no. 1, str. 80-126. [COBISS.SI-ID 1130747]